Indie-rock band Guster will perform at the Inaugural Concert for President Clayton Rose on Friday, October 16 in Morrell Gym. This will be their fourth concert at Bowdoin in the last fifteen years, including a performance as the Ivies headliner in 2013. 

“I think we’ll be playing Bowdoin until we’re 60 years old, because we have a relative who works at the office of student activities… I’m just kidding,” Guster drummer Brian Rosenworcel said in a phone interview with the Orient. As far as he knows, none of the members of Guster have any familial ties to Bowdoin administrators. 

While the band is no stranger to a Bowdoin audience—Rosenworcel estimates they’ve played here a total of six times—their upcoming concert will be a different experience entirely. 

“It might be unprecedented for Bowdoin, but we’ve played some really awkward events in our day, so we’re good at it,” said Rosenworcel of the Inaugural Concert. “It will only be awkward if we make it awkward, which we’ll probably choose to do.” 

He recalled a dedication ceremony the band performed at Carnegie Mellon University.

“Someone spent several million dollars to dedicate this building or whatever and all Ryan [Miller, the lead singer] could do was rail against the one percenters,” he said.

In an unusual schedule for the band, the inauguration concert will be Guster’s only college show for the rest of the year. 

“We’ve played a lot of colleges,” Rosenworcel explained. “We may be up there with having played the most colleges of any band, except like, the Roots.” 

He added that Guster’s origins as a college band likely contribute to their lasting popularity on campuses around the country. Rosenworcel, Miller and guitarist Adam Gardner met at Tufts, where they formed Guster in 1991.

Not long after, the band began performing at other small colleges throughout New England. 

“We [first] came to Bowdoin while we were Tufts dudes—that means we drove there in my little Chevy Nova and I carried my equipment in my lap as I was driving,” recalled Rosenworcel. “But we always had fun at Jack Magee’s Pub.”

Since then, the band has achieved success on a national scale. They’ve had several top 40 singles over the years including “Careful,” “Amsterdam” and “Fa-Fa.” Their music has been featured in “Wedding Crashers,” “Disturbia,” and “The O.C.”

Guster’s most recent album, “Evermotion,” was released this past January. The Boston Globe called it “an airy, winsome release that puts less focus on guitars, dabbling instead in horns and electronic and new wave sounds, to terrific, moody effect.” 

“It feels like we broke through a wall with this one, and I’m excited to see what’s on the other side of it,” said Rosenworcel.

Guster’s career has spanned across three decades, and Rosenworcel explained that they’ve stayed relevant by continuing to produce new material rather than rely on old hits.  

“We’re really passionate about putting together an album that is closer and closer to being a classic,” he said. “I think that has just helped us be less of a nostalgia act and more of a band that is creating on a high level.”

Rosenworcel had some advice for college bands looking to emulate Guster’s success. 

“Get a van and then soup it up, because we put a futon and a Nintendo in ours, and it was awesome,” he said. “There was nowhere else we wanted to be. We would just hang out there, playing Mario Kart in the back of our van, driving from gig to gig. It didn’t matter if there were any people at the gig because we had a van with a futon and Mario Kart in it.” 

“We can’t wait to welcome the new president,” Rosenworcel added. “I didn’t realize that’s what we were doing but now I know.”